Disclosed herein is an apparatus and method for print job redirection.
Presently, in digital printing, a plurality of printing devices, such as ink-jet printers or xerographic “laser printers,” are selectably available for use by computers or other sources of image data over a network. The sources of image data can have different requirements for different print jobs sent to different printing devices. For example, a user may require a certain type or size of paper for a given print job. The user will then send the print job to a printing device that is equipped with the desired paper type or size. Different print jobs may have other requirements, such as paper color, stapling, print quality, color printing, color correction, or other printing device feature options.
Unfortunately, when a user goes to a printing device to retrieve their printout, the user may find a problem at the printing device. For example, the printing device may be down, there may be a paper jam in the device, or there may be many print jobs ahead of the user's print job. The user may then desire to forward their print job to another printing device. The user then encounters a further problem in that the user will not know which other printing devices are available and will not know which features are offered by the other printing devices. Thus, the user will not be able to determine which other printing devices properly satisfy the requirements of their print job.
Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method for print job redirection.